Sona roots for women power

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Singer Sona Mohapatra, who is known for her powerful rustic voice, was recently in the capital to perform with her band. The music composer and performer, who has belted out hits like Ambarsariya and Mujhe Kya Bechega Rupaiya, mentions that her collaborations in this season of MTV Coke Studio celebrates feminism and revives the long lost sounds of Indian music.
Music composer Ram Sampath has composed Sona’s recent track Piya Se Naina and she feels this is her best performance so far.
Speaking about the song she says, “The lyrics of this song are originally written by the 13th century poet Hazrat Amir Khusro and this song is a very powerful expression of love, freedom and devotion. This season of Coke Studio is based on a theme called Devi, where seven different women artistes from India have recorded very unique songs to celebrate womanhood.”
Sona also tried out a very different genre called gospel-qawwali and recorded a track called Dum Dum Andar with artist Samantha Edwards.
She says, “We have tried to fuse two very unique genres of music to create a new uplifting song. The other song that I have recorded with artist Aruna Sairam is called Aigiri Nandini, which is a traditional prayer — Mahishasura Mardini Stotram — celebrating Durga and it is blended with Bulleh Shah’s epic love kalaam. It has created a lot of debate, but the idea behind mixing the Durga prayer with Bulleh Shah’s poetry was to celebrate the power of love. A woman only resorts to violence when she has to protect someone, just like Goddess Durga becomes Shakti to kill Mahishasura to protect her loved ones.”
The 35-year-old singer, who recently stepped out on the streets of Mumbai to protest the rise in crimes against women, feels that it is high time we teach men in our country to respect women.
She says, “It’s disgusting to see the misogyny that is prevalent in our society, it’s time we declare it a national disease. There are horror stories of women being raped and molested everyday and we are doing nothing about it. It’s sad to see the imbalance in sex ratio in cities. I think we should have severe punishments for rape. It is as bad as murder and the culprit shouldn’t be forgiven.”
Sona, who recently performed at designer Anita Dongre’s show at the Lakme Fashion Week, was in the news for tripping on her gown during the performance.
But the singer clarifies, “I collaborated with Anita because she is doing a great job by reviving the ancient crafts of India. At the end of the show I sang Mujhe Kya Bechega Rupaiya and everyone was singing along, and it was an emotional moment for me.”